Posted on 12 November 2011

During the holiday shopping season, it is important that you make some additional promotions on your online merchandise for your website visitors. When shopping during the holidays, everyone wants to save money, so retailers often respond to that by giving discounts on some or all of their merchandise for sale. This applies both to e-commerce sites and brick and mortar businesses. But in addition to lowering the price of your items for sale, there are many other things that you can do to make your online shopping site more attractive to visitors during this upcoming holiday shopping season. Remember that creativity is always a good thing in the online world and if you have many competitors in your niche, making your site and your holiday promotions stand out from the rest will definitely put you at a strong advantage. Here are some examples of things you may offer to your buyers:

Free Gift Wrapping

Many people who buy holiday gifts online have them shipped directly to the recipient. This is definitely a good idea if that recipient doesn’t live in the same area. Offering to gift wrap the items for free is a good service that you can give to the buyers on your website.

Free Shipping

One of the things that turns people off from shopping online for the holidays is the shipping fees. But some e-commerce sites have responded to this by offering free shipping on some or all of their items. To do this, you would just need to calculate the cost of shipping certain items to see if it would be still profitable for you to sell the item and offer free shipping. Consider offering free shipping on certain orders, such as those over $100. Take a look at the rates offered by shipping carriers to see if you can get cheaper shipping rates based on the volume of packages that you send out every day.

Loyalty Offers for Existing Customers

If a buyer purchases something from you, consider sending them a discount code in their email which is valid for a certain percentage off their next order. While this is more complicated to integrate into a site, you could also set up a points based rewards program, where shoppers could earn points and exchange them for discounts on your merchandise.

Deeper Discounts for the First Buyers

You could offer an even better discount offer than what you currently have for, say, the first 10 buyers of an item. This can help you sell one of your items that is not too popular. If the price is low enough, it can also serve as promoting an impulse buy, especially if it is something small and relatively inexpensive.

These are all some great examples of offers that you can make for your website visitors during the busy shopping season. But of course, the key element is creativity. If you believe that something else will work well with your audience, then don’t hesitate to try it on your website!